Next Time You See Me (9 page)

“Come on, let’s get a drink,” she said.

“It’s only three o’clock.”

“So what?”

“I’m on my way to a yoga class.”

“Yoga?” She tilted her head and stared at me.

“It’s part of my therapy plan.”

“I thought you were some kind of ass-kicking cop.”

“Former cop. My therapist thought it would be good for me.”

“I see.” She wove her arm through mine and turned me away from the YMCA on Atlantic Avenue that my mother and I had recently joined. Ben was taking a Tumbling Toddlers class and Mom sometimes went for exer-robics in the pool. “Ever had a Blue Devil?”

My mind did a back bend over that, instantly picturing an actual
blue
devil hovering over me in bed. Then I realized it was some kind of drink.

“Nope.”

She steered me left on Dean Street and right onto Smith Street, which at this time of day was busy with backpack-slung kids coming home from school. I admit I didn’t argue or fight; yoga was okay, but I ached for two days after every class, and in truth I felt more like drinking than down-dogging my way through the afternoon. Walking along Smith, she seemed to have a comment about every bar we passed.

Snack: “The tapas aren’t as good as they look.”

Ceol: “Good crowd but stinks of beer.”

Bar Great Harry: “
Really
stinks of beer once you get over the fancy-schmancy.”

Boat: “So
red
.”

Angry Wade: “Regular barfly there got murdered by some teenage sex psycho.”

“Yikes! At the bar?”

“In his home, but still. They set up a shrine at the bar where he sat. Gives me the creeps to think about it.”

And then we came to Camp, which earned Jasmine’s rating of approval: “Now
this
place I like.”

The bar’s storefront had an outdoorsy theme that really took hold once you stepped inside. The first thing I noticed was the deer’s head mounted on the wall, then the kayak and the light fixtures that were actually buckets. Behind the bar was a huge photograph of a lake. A wood-burning fireplace crackled and glowed and sent out a welcome wave of warmth. Despite the early hour, there were five people posted on barstools and a couple of men at a table in the far corner of the smallish space. Jasmine plunked herself down on an overstuffed armchair facing another one that was artfully mismatched, but when sat in was very comfortable. My body sank in so deeply I knew it would be a while before I had the will to get up.

“Smell that?” she asked.

I sniffed. Mingled with the woodsy scent of the burning fire was something else: chocolate and marshmallow. “It smells like s’mores.”

She pointed to a dark corner where a young man sat at a butcher block table building the treat I had loved as a child at sleepaway camp.

“How long have you been in Brooklyn?” I asked Jasmine.

“Two months, more or less.”

“And you know
all
these places?”

“I get out. Don’t believe in sitting home complaining to myself.”

I could hear her saying that to my mother at work, and my mother recognizing my polar opposite—just what I needed. When times got tough, I dug in; apparently when times got tough for Jasmine, she burst out. I envied her.

In the end I didn’t try a Blue Devil but the specialty of the house, a Dirty Girl Scout—heavy on the vodka and white crème de menthe—because Jasmine was trying one for the first time and she made it sound like an adventure.

“Sitting in here,” I said, “it’s like night.”

“Doesn’t matter the time of day, here it’s always campfire time. That’s one reason I like it.”

“How often do you go out?”

“Five, six nights a week.”

“I don’t think I’d have it in me. Even when I was single, I stayed home a lot when I wasn’t working.”

“You were a cop—you didn’t need to go out for excitement.”

“What did you do in—?” I didn’t know where she was from.

“Maine.”

I stared at her.

“Yep, we’re way up in Maine. We’re
everywhere
.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Whatever. Everybody thinks you’ll only find Dominicans in the cities or down south. I don’t take it personally.”

“So what did you do before—in Maine?”

She shrugged. “This and that. Stores. Restaurants. You know—service jobs.”

“And your husband?”

“
Ex
. Ski bum. Instructor.” She made a shivering gesture with her shoulders. “I get cold thinking about it—the place,
him
. Next subject?”

So we talked about something else, anything other than our husbands and the lives we had lived before September. We had that in common: We were refugees from a past that was still so close you could almost touch it.

We were on our second round of drinks, concentrating on deconstructing a Jenga tower—we had fished as many pieces as we could find from a basket of games near the fire—when the front door swung open, revealing a purplish slice of late afternoon. In walked Billy Staples, wearing his out-on-the-town plaid shirt and cowboy boots—and jarring me out of the sweet, warm cocoon Jasmine had lured me into.

“Hey, Karin!” When he leaned down to kiss my cheek I smelled a whiff of cologne mixed with the snap of cold November air he’d brought in with him. My heart started beating quickly, which surprised me; and then I remembered this past September when I’d noticed how attractive he was. Again, I forced my mind away from that thought. Feeling attracted to another man was an acknowledgment that Mac was never coming back, an acceptance of his death, and I still wasn’t quite ready for that.

“Jazz, babe.” Billy’s voice turned gooier than the s’more I’d eaten. He leaned down and kissed her.

“You know Karin?” she asked him.

“Long time.” He winked at me. “Didn’t know you knew Jazz.”

“We just met recently. She works with my mother at the bookstore. I’m so confused!” I smiled foolishly, feeling as tipsy as I probably looked. It was then that I noticed that their cowboy boots actually matched, and that hers were stiff and new.

“I found this little lady sitting right here about—what?”

“Twenty-seven days ago.” When Jasmine blushed, her mocha skin turned almost russet and made her even prettier. Of course Billy would want her.

He sat on the arm of her chair and she put a hand on his back.

“Can I take a turn?” he asked.

“No way,” she said. “You’ll knock it down in two seconds.”

“So you guys are a
couple
,” I said, looking at them, smiling now for real.

“I’m through with men.” She blinked her eyes at him. “But this one here? He’s more like a god, you know what I mean?”

“Okay—spare me the details, please.” I pulled a piece from the middle of the Jenga tower, which didn’t shift even slightly. “Your turn.”

She sat forward, her back board-straight. I saw Billy glance down into her cleavage while she considered her move. She ignored him and used the tips of her long fingernails to edge out a piece. As I watched her I found myself wishing her move would fail and the tower would come crashing down. An irrational impulse swept through me.

It wasn’t fair.

I wanted to
be
Jasmine.

I wanted Billy to want me—and I wanted to not care that Mac was gone.

I sat back in my comfy chair, closed my eyes, and forcibly banished the foolish thoughts.

“You okay?” Billy asked me.

“Fine. Just a little woozy. What time is it?”

“About five-thirty.”

I fished around the floor for my purse and found it partway under the chair. Stood up. “I should really go.”

“Stay,” Jasmine said. “Get lost, cowboy. This is girls’ night.”

“No, really. I want to see Ben before he goes to bed.”

“Yeah, well”—she glanced at Billy, who rested a hand on her shoulder—“I guess you can’t argue with motherhood.”

“Karin’s a great mom,” Billy said.

“I bet she is.”

“Walk you home?” Billy offered.

“I’ll be fine. Thanks anyway.”

As I made my way through the nose-ringed multitattooed patrons who had filled the space when I wasn’t looking, I heard Jasmine ask Billy, “How do you know her?”

“Friend of her late husband’s.”

“Ouch.”

And then I was out the door, passing through the cluster of sidewalk smokers and walking along Smith Street amid teenagers listening to iPods, workers heading home, mothers pushing strollers and holding older children’s hands as they crossed the street. It was a relief to be out of the faux comfort of Camp and back to the real, grown-up world where my mother and son waited for me in our quiet house—where I could remember Mac to my heart’s content, smell him in our closet, sense him in our bed, and mourn him properly.

O
n Thanksgiving, Jasmine came early to help. As she stood at the kitchen counter, wearing my mother’s favorite cow-print apron and chopping celery, she filled us in on details before we asked for them.

“My parents died when I was sixteen, same year, Mom first of cancer and then Pop of heartbreak. I mean it, he died of heartbreak just like they say. After that I stayed with my granny but she wasn’t up for having a kid around, and anyway like I said I was sixteen, so whatever.”
Chop chop chop.
“And then before you knew it I met Jesus who thought he was
God
and I made my first big mistake by moving in with him. Two years. Then I met Ricky who thought
he
was God and big mistake number two, four years. Then here comes Joe-on-skis the biggest God of them all and I really go for it this time, I
marry
him after knowing him three and a half weeks. Six years later, ladies, here I stand. Ready to start anew. Where do you want all this celery, Pam?”

“In that big bowl. Thanks.”

“Next?”

“Read the package of bread crumbs over there and just do what it says.”

“You got it.”

“Are you serious about Billy?” Concentrating on peeling a potato in a perfect spiral, I didn’t look up.

“Serious? Who said I was ever serious?” Jasmine’s laugh was like glass bells.

“I think he’s a lovely man,” Mom offered, “and
handsome
.”

“Mom!”

“Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m blind.”

“I never really noticed if he was handsome.” I picked up another potato. “Billy’s just . . . Billy.”

“Well, take a good look,” Jasmine said. “Get an eyeful. But he’s a good man, too, I think. And generous: He bought me these boots after our third date.” She tapped one pointy toe three times.

A cry came from the baby monitor.

“Ben’s awake,” I said.

“I can go.” Mom emptied some rinsed lettuce leaves into a salad bowl and dried her hands on the dishtowel slung over her shoulder.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ve got it.”

As I hurried through the living room I accidentally knocked over Jasmine’s purse, which she had left on the edge of a chair, upending it and all its contents onto the floor. I bent down to clean up the mess as Ben’s cries escalated.

“Don’t worry about it.” Jasmine came over, crouched down, and started scooping up lipsticks, a hairbrush, a notepad, a toothbrush case.

I handed her some slips of paper and her cell phone, then picked up a partially open envelope spilling an airline ticket. The date caught my eye, because it was tomorrow.

“Are you taking a trip?” I looked more closely at the ticket. “To Miami?”

She grabbed the ticket out of my hand and tossed it into her bag. “Maybe.”

“With Billy? That’s so romantic.”

“Nothing doing. I’m going
alone
.”

“Why?”

Resting her elbows on her knees, still in her crouch, she looked at me. “Because it’s my birthday Saturday and I want to spend it under a palm tree in the best company I can think of: myself.” She stood up.

“I always wanted to do that!” Mom called out from the kitchen. “Good for you, Jasmine.”

I hurried downstairs to Ben, who was standing in his crib, holding on to the bars. The instant he saw me his tears dissolved and he laughed and jumped. As I changed his diaper, I thought about Jasmine’s birthday, the plane ticket, her plans—why hadn’t she told us about any of that? It confirmed something I had long thought about very extroverted people: Deep down they’re lonely, possibly lonelier than the rest of us, which accounted for their need for constant companionship. I wondered if Jasmine’s plan to spend her birthday all alone was some kind of challenge. If it was, it didn’t sit right.

All through dinner, while Jasmine peppered us with stories of her parents’ arrival in Bangor, Maine thirty-five years ago and the locals’ gradual embrace of this family that was so unlike most of them and that brought “spice to their plain vanilla,” as she put it, I thought about her lonely birthday plans.
If
I
were Jasmine
, I found myself thinking,
I would throw myself a party
.
If
I
were Jasmine, I would get Billy to take me dancing
.
If
I
were Jasmine,
I would go to Paris on the spur of the moment
.